The Kepler kerfluffle: Earth-like planets are everywhere, but we can’t tell you yet

You’ve probably heard of the Kepler mission, an instrument launched to find Earth-like planets in the heavens. (If you haven’t, get some background here.) Well, they’ve found some. But they’re not talking.

Not to the people who paid for the project, at least.

On July 16 at a TED talk in Oxford, England astronomer Dimitar Sasselov gave a talk about the search for Earth-like planets in our galaxy (see the actual talk). Sasselov, a co-investigator, said the following:

You can see here [points to chart] – small planets dominate the picture. The planets which are marked “like Earth” – definitely more than any of the other planets that we see. Now for the first time we can say that.

There is a lot more work we need to do with this. Most of these are candidates and in the next few years – we will confirm them – but the statistical result is loud and clear – and the statistical result is that planets like our own Earth are out there. [points to chart] Our Milky Way galaxy is rich in this kind of planet.

The conclusion from the data presented during the talk is quite clear: In the sample of stars studied so far by Kepler, by far the most common type of planet is Earth-like, with a radius less than twice that of Earth’s radius.

That’s a phenomenal finding. The problem is that the Kepler mission — funded primarily by NASA and therefore you — hasn’t said a word about these discoveries.

Shortly after the TED Talk other members of the Kepler team said (in this space.com article, for example) Sasselov was only referring to “candidate” planets, rather than planets for which the data has been fully vetted.

Sasselov said he was only providing information contained in this pre-print of a forthcoming journal article.

Maybe so. But nevertheless this is a real problem for NASA. One of the biggest questions the space agency is currently investigation is whether we live in a galaxy where Earth-like worlds are common, as this is a stepping stone to answering whether there’s intelligent life out there.

And instead of answering this question publicly, it has leaked out in a private event for which tickets cost on the order of $6,000.

37 Responses

I don’t think you have the full story here. The news about the hundreds of ‘candidate’ planets was public knowledge almost 2 weeks before the talk you refer to. The Planetary Society’s public radio show had an episode all about it released on July 5th which I listened to when it came out. You can see it in the archive list here:

Yeah, I don’t see this being a very big problem. Like they said ‘candidate’ planets aren’t the same as ‘confirmed’ planets. Besides it will take months, even years before the data is correct.

There is an issue however that should be mentioned. If NASA had announced this prelimineary data to the public, I truly believe the public would misinterpret the data. Rather than saying “we found many potential Earth-like planets capable of sustaining the ingredients needed for life to flourish”, the public will view it as “they found another blue-green Earth that supports intelligent life”; especially when Kepler is not designed to detect this at all.

Also, I think the chart presented is in itself misleading. The chart says that they found many exoplanets similar in size to the Earth. But in effect that doesn’t mean they’re Earth-like. There’s no estimation of the size of the orbit, the size of the star, or even the atmospheric distribution of the planets themselves; all of which are needed to determine if it is even remotely possible that it is Earth-like. For all we know, they could be Mercury-like, Moon-like, even Venus-like. There’s simply no way to tell at this time.

IMO, it was a mistake for the astronomer to even show this data before we really know what it means. All in all, it seems more like a publicity stunt intended to rile up the public’s perception than a true fact-based presentation.

It has been no secret in the planetology community that there will be a lot more Earth-sized planets than Jupiter-sized; it is demanded by accretionary physics. We have known about this since the late 70s. And so any planetologist worth his salt has expected to find hundreds (if not thousands) of candidates in the Kepler data.

What I suspect is really going on is that those outside of the Kepler team are trying to use this as a lever to pry the data out before the proprietary period ends. As you know, there has been considerable angst in the planetology community over the partial release of Kepler data. IMHO, the Kepler team earned thta proprietary period – without their work, Kepler would never have flown and there’d be no data at all!

Though of course I don’t mean we ought to grant them a perpetual license over the data!

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They don’t have one. The data release schedule is here; the latest that any data will be released is September 18, 2013.

Again, this is standard practice for any government-funded research project. I can only think of one major project (EarthScope) without such an embargo. Magellan, MOLA, even HST all have embargo periods of various lengths.

If only there was this much concern to get the data out from certain other science endeavors.

If we are going to confirm that lots of relatively small rocky planets are out there, then it is time for some young visionary, probably someone who is quietly working on their own, to find us the loophole that lets us get out there and visit them.

What is with this “Earth like” terminoligy used here? Size is not everything but only one aspect of many requirements needed to make a planet hospitable to Earth like creatures.

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Read that as “Earth-sized” (0.1 Me > 3 Me); from a geophysical standpoint, that’s the important bit. Much smaller, and there’s no atmosphere (ala Mercury). Much larger and there’s too much atmosphere (ala Neptune). Earth is a Goldilocks planet in more ways than one!

Due to the limitations of the process used to detect planets right now, Earth-size planets in the habital zone are unlikely to be detected unless they are very, very near.

Further to previous, NASA should immediately establish a Planetary Information Marketing Policy to organize the sell of data. Once this is established, potential clients could contact NASA anonymously to purchase the TRansit Information Collected from Kepler. Some clients will prefer data on little red stars, while others may go for larger yellow ones, so the data can be spread around.

Once the PIMP sets cost for a TRICK, the client can transfer funds directly to NASA.. preferably in $20 bills. Those who object to economizing scientific data in this manner should be reminded that astronomy is one of the world’s oldest professions.

OMG, there are some totally hilarious responses! Love it! @SAN, that was fairly brilliant! And @Taylor McClain – pure awesomeness!@Lazarus – I have often wondered what gaetano marano posts about, but in this day and age I *NEVER* click on unsolicited links. Ever.Regarding Eric’s post, well, we all know it’s always about money and/or power and/or control. Why would this be any different?

SAN, you’re not far wrong. There is the Planetary Data System, which stores and provides access to all of the data acquired by NASA probes and satellites that observe the Solar System. You cna buy the data on CD, or download it for free.

The Lunar and Planetary Institute gives an ongoing series of lectures, at U of H Clear Lake, on various aspects of planetary science. Last spring, they gave one good lecture on the Kepler telescope, and another good lecture on the possible “signature” of life in any Earth-size planets detected.

At the time I attended the lecture on the Kepler telescope, all of the info presented related to “Jupiters” and “Neptunes” that had been detected and confirmed with Kepler. Of course, that early in the experiment, most of these were “hot” Jupiters and Neptunes. The lecturer also talked about the numerical magnitudes of the data features that would actually characterize detection of Earth-size planets.

I also attended the later lecture on life signature. Basically, in the Earth-size planets, they will look first for an atmosphere. Then, most importantly, they will look for FREE OXYGEN in that atmosphere. When they test an atmosphere, if the see a large amount of carbon dioxide then they probably have a “Venus.” But if instead they see a large amount of free oxygen then they possibly have a life-bearing “Earth!”

In the search for possible life-bearing planets, stars that are Sun-size are the prime candidates. However, stars that are significantly smaller than Sun-size are not ruled out. Stars much larger than Sun-size are ruled out, because giant stars have total lifetimes that are much too short for the 3 or 4 billion years needed for development of complex life.

This is neither news (that there are numerous planet candidates with diameters smaller than 1.5 Earths among the 400 ‘secret’ candidates was reported back in June) nor a key breakthrough: All those candidates must be confirmed as genuine planets by other means, which is tough, and few if any of them will be in the habitable zone of their stars. Next February, when their identities are revealed, we will know more.

Steve C., gabriellyn, Jim – Thanx for props. Who says important issues can’t be analyzed objectively in a public forum?

JohnD – Thanx for info, which clearly illustrates radical overuse of the word “free” in current NASA policy. If research consortiums are willing to chunk billions at the prospect of finding one lousy boson, imagine what they’ll pay for a chance to find Earth 2.

BTW, did you catch my updates at the deep sea creatures post? There are several short comments with links there at the bottom of the comment section! It took me a few tries, but I finally recognized that deep sea bug you were wondering about! :^D

Now ttyler5.. You need to get into the spirit of this thing. We’re trying to make a few bucks here to recover some of our Sacred Tax Dollars. We need to be proactive about discussing these STD’s openly and finding new ways to promote a partial or even full recovery. Yes we do.

Of course, Uncle Sam likes to tell us what he considers public and “sensitive” information, and we get to pay for it regardless. Don’t recall any freedom-of-information lawsuits forcing NASA to release info early against their normal proprietary periods. And if you still threaten to sue, they just might take you for a midnight swim in that big training pool wearing a pair of tank-foam overshoes. Which won’t actually make you sink, but rather just float upside down. Easier recovery.